Election Countdown 2012: Obama Gives Major Disaster Declarations to NY and NJ Before Federal Assessments are Done, and More

This week in the Election Countdown: Four people charged with forcing Vietnamese immigrants to work at a wedding shop as modern day slaves have been convicted of 15 additional criminal counts; Republican congressional candidate in Iowa declared that there should be no flood relief until debt is reduced; Robert Redford adds his voice to the anti-fracking campaign in New York; Obama's leadership during the hurricane sets him up as "the leader of bipartisanship;" and More.

Mission elapsed time: T + 53 and counting*

Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. –Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

IL. Hurricane Sandy: “Sandy’s outer bands were violent enough to rip up near-record high waves Tuesday on Lake Michigan, sending a community of avid surfers in Chicago into the cold, churning waters. Wave heights out in the middle of the lake reached 20 feet, short of the 23-foot record set last year by a strong storm pushing down from Canada.”

MD. Hurricane Sandy: “More than 2 feet of snow fell in parts of Garrett and Allegany counties as the remnants of Hurricane Sandy collided with a cold front backed by polar air.” And in Maine? Nothing.

ME. Landfill: “‘It should be restated that DEP has no obligation to serve [state-owned landfill operator] Casella’s customers,’ [Ed] Spencer said. ‘If Casella wants to stop incinerating in Biddeford, they have choices,’ among them, sending southern Maine waste out of state or to one of the three other waste-to-energy plants in Maine.” Well, in a market state, yes the DEP does. … Angus King: “On [Independent Angus] King’s side, the 501(c)(4) nonprofit group Americans Elect continues to spend on the former governor’s behalf. As of Monday morning, the organization had spent $1.42 million on promoting King.That organization had raised $1.75 million from three donors — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Americans Elect founder Peter Ackerman and San Francisco investor John Burbank — specifically to aid King.”

NC. Voting: “State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett says his office has received many reports of ‘aggressive electioneering’ at in-person voting sites during early voting that ends Saturday. Bartlett said he’s never heard more complaints, misinformation and what he calls voter suppression or intimidation activities during his tenure.”

OH. Voting: “As a strategy, TrueTheVote has tried to align itself with election officials and seek some form of deputized role. In CO, they offered to help counties with their voter list purges. In WI during last June’s gubernatorial recall election, they wanted to help verify recall petition signatures. Those two efforts led nowhere. But now in OH, they clearly are pushing the legal line with their poll worker training.” … Jeep flap: “Last week, Romney recklessly told a large audience in Defiance that he’d read that Chrysler’s Italian owners — that would be Fiat, which has controlled the American automaker since 2009 — were planning to move all Jeep production to China. But apparently Romney had been reading a blogger [(!!?!?)] who misunderstood reports that Chrysler was looking to again make some Jeeps in China for that expanding market. The news is a sign of Chrysler’s health, not of some sinister intentions by its management. A company spokesman called any suggestion that Chrysler is abandoning its U.S. plants ‘a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.’” Language! Then again, Obama did bail them out, so fair’s fair. … Jeep flap: “An advertisement from the R candidate’s campaign run on both radio and television this week suggested that Chrysler was preparing to shift production of its Jeep brand from the US to China. The Chrysler chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, wrote in an email message to the Detroit Free Press that the company felt it needed to ‘unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.’” … Jeep flap: “Here is the bottom line regarding the Romney camp’s Jeep ad: It gives the impression that they’re trailing in OH. Otherwise, they never would have resorted to this kind of TV ad; it’s the feel of going nuclear” (The Trail). Note that Romney is resuming campaigning in FL, not OH.

TN. Fracking: “According to the newly approved Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) rules on fracking, ratified by the Tennessee Oil and Gas Board on Sept. 28, if enough of your neighbors sign away their mineral rights (sometimes for as little as $10 an acre), a gas drilling company can use your land, whether you like it or not.”

WI. Surrogates: “Romney canceled his West Allis appearance last night because of Hurricane Sandy. But today, his wife and running mate are scheduled to be in the state. Joe Biden and Bill Clinton will be filling in for Obama this week.” … Food carts: “The city’s Vending Oversight Committee, as part of its annual review of food carts, on Wednesday will discuss whether carts must offer vegetarian menu items.” Never happen in Philly. Sausage inna bun!

The trail. Data: “The glowing accounts [e.g.; e.g.] in the newspapers conjure up visions of hip young geeks parked in front of gleaming banks of computers, winning elections with the click of a mouse. … The sophisticated techniques the press describes (like using data to tailor phone pitches to voters) are things the campaign aspires to but fails to execute properly, at least in my field level view. The irony is that the ‘old-fashioned’ way of doing things – before powerful databases – could possibly be more effective than all that tedious mucking about with low quality data.” This is an important post. I have anecdotal evidence that the D field operations hollowed out when many (female) volunteers hung up their clipboards post-2008. We might view the data-centric approach as the electoral version of drone strikes: A high-tech substitute for a hollowed out field force, and far less accurate than claimed. I can think back to one vaunted D field operation that got its lunch handed to it by Rs, and quite recently: The WI recall (not high tech, but just as heavily marketed). We’ll soon know! … Data: “Some of these ['voter fraud vigilante'] challenges appear to be the work of isolated individuals, others are coordinated by local groups ‘empowered by’ national entities like True the Vote. The common thread is that the challenges are based not on personal information about particular voters, but computerized scans of data records.” … Hurricane Sandy: “Public opinion polling operations were disrupted Monday and Tuesday because the storm cut power and telecommunication services to millions of voters in the Northeast and in the battleground states of OH and VA.” … Hurricane Sandy: “Because Sandy is hitting major population centers, it will affect the election, altering early voting, get-out-the-vote drives and last-minute, door-to-door campaigning. In Virginia’s Senate race, D Tim Kaine and R George Allen jointly asked their supporters to take down their yard signs lest the placards become injurious missiles in Sandy’s high winds.” … Hurricane Sandy: “If poll hours are extended, under a 2002 law passed by Congress in response to the disputed 2000 presidential election, any voters who show up outside of regular hours must use provisional ballots, which are counted later and could be challenged. Sandy’s impact was felt in some of the most competitive states in the presidential race, including Virginia and Ohio. The more provisional ballots that are cast, the greater the chances are that the winner won’t be known until days or even weeks after the election” (good explainer). … Polling: “It’s not a conspiracy theory;those other polls are just simply missing a critical segment of Obama’s coalition: cellphone users.” And: “If you look at the election through cell phones, you see Obama gain an 11-point lead in the convention and post-convention period, but if you look at landline respondents, the race has been close and pretty stable.” I dunno. Seems like a pretty basic methodological flaw for very well-paid vendors to overlook. … Horse race: “[Obama: 253 EV/27 states, Romney 191/23]. The seven jump ball states with a total of 94 electoral votes are CO (9), FL (29), IA (6), NH (4), NC (15), OH (18), and VA (13). To win, Obama needs to win states with 17 [of that] 94, while Romney needs 79 of 94. However, the Obama advantage is not as clear cut as this suggests. In each of these states, Obama and Romney are within 5 percentage points of each other and in most they are within 2 or 3 points of each other” (Charlie Cook).

The Obama. Hurricane Sandy: “Obama took the rare step of granting major-disaster declarations to NY and NJ without a full federal assessment [verbally] , clearing the way more quickly for direct grants to individuals hit hardest by former Hurricane Sandy” (2012-10-30). … Hurricane Sandy: Presidents can overcome the effect of even the most severe weather damage in a particular location by declaring that location a disaster area (and therefore eligible for federal disaster funds).” (Monkey Cage, 2012-10-28. So, has Team Obama read the literature?) … Hurrricane Sandy: “While Romney was playing political defense, Obama was the model of bipartisanship. He complemented local officials of both parties, saying without the steps taken by state and local officials, the death toll could have been much higher. He also went on to praise first responders and promised ‘no bureaucracy, no red tape’ by the federal government in responding to this disaster.” … Hurricane Sandy: “After suspending official campaigning in deference to Hurricane Sandy for three crucial days, he’s using the power of his office not only to oversee the federal government response, but also to showcase for voters the popular side of an active government while presenting a take-charge image of himself reinforced by the multi-media message machinery of the White House.” It’s a sad day when performing the basic operations of government becomes a cause for celebration. … Obama remarks to the Red Cross: [Obama rises to the occasion (and if I say that…) Yes, it's a shame that the solidarity Obama evokes in an emergency is being corroded and destroyed on a day-to-day basis by Obama's market state-driven policies, and one can see quite easily how the mechanisms deployed for "natural" disasters -- especially the stress on compliance -- could be repurposed for "emergencies" less natural, but this was no Katrina moment for Obama. And Obama's reach-around to leverage Chris Christie's 2016 ambitions was a master stroke. ("Already, the late-night calls to Republican Gov. Chris Christie are public (thanks to Christie, not the president, by the way.") Ha.]

* Slogan of the day: Unite With The Obama To Achieve An Even Greater Victory!

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Election Countdown 2012: Obama Gives Major Disaster Declarations to NY and NJ Before Federal Assessments are Done, and More

This week in the Election Countdown: Four people charged with forcing Vietnamese immigrants to work at a wedding shop as modern day slaves have been convicted of 15 additional criminal counts; Republican congressional candidate in Iowa declared that there should be no flood relief until debt is reduced; Robert Redford adds his voice to the anti-fracking campaign in New York; Obama's leadership during the hurricane sets him up as "the leader of bipartisanship;" and More.

Mission elapsed time: T + 53 and counting*

Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. –Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

IL. Hurricane Sandy: “Sandy’s outer bands were violent enough to rip up near-record high waves Tuesday on Lake Michigan, sending a community of avid surfers in Chicago into the cold, churning waters. Wave heights out in the middle of the lake reached 20 feet, short of the 23-foot record set last year by a strong storm pushing down from Canada.”

MD. Hurricane Sandy: “More than 2 feet of snow fell in parts of Garrett and Allegany counties as the remnants of Hurricane Sandy collided with a cold front backed by polar air.” And in Maine? Nothing.

ME. Landfill: “‘It should be restated that DEP has no obligation to serve [state-owned landfill operator] Casella’s customers,’ [Ed] Spencer said. ‘If Casella wants to stop incinerating in Biddeford, they have choices,’ among them, sending southern Maine waste out of state or to one of the three other waste-to-energy plants in Maine.” Well, in a market state, yes the DEP does. … Angus King: “On [Independent Angus] King’s side, the 501(c)(4) nonprofit group Americans Elect continues to spend on the former governor’s behalf. As of Monday morning, the organization had spent $1.42 million on promoting King.That organization had raised $1.75 million from three donors — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Americans Elect founder Peter Ackerman and San Francisco investor John Burbank — specifically to aid King.”

NC. Voting: “State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett says his office has received many reports of ‘aggressive electioneering’ at in-person voting sites during early voting that ends Saturday. Bartlett said he’s never heard more complaints, misinformation and what he calls voter suppression or intimidation activities during his tenure.”

OH. Voting: “As a strategy, TrueTheVote has tried to align itself with election officials and seek some form of deputized role. In CO, they offered to help counties with their voter list purges. In WI during last June’s gubernatorial recall election, they wanted to help verify recall petition signatures. Those two efforts led nowhere. But now in OH, they clearly are pushing the legal line with their poll worker training.” … Jeep flap: “Last week, Romney recklessly told a large audience in Defiance that he’d read that Chrysler’s Italian owners — that would be Fiat, which has controlled the American automaker since 2009 — were planning to move all Jeep production to China. But apparently Romney had been reading a blogger [(!!?!?)] who misunderstood reports that Chrysler was looking to again make some Jeeps in China for that expanding market. The news is a sign of Chrysler’s health, not of some sinister intentions by its management. A company spokesman called any suggestion that Chrysler is abandoning its U.S. plants ‘a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.’” Language! Then again, Obama did bail them out, so fair’s fair. … Jeep flap: “An advertisement from the R candidate’s campaign run on both radio and television this week suggested that Chrysler was preparing to shift production of its Jeep brand from the US to China. The Chrysler chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, wrote in an email message to the Detroit Free Press that the company felt it needed to ‘unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.’” … Jeep flap: “Here is the bottom line regarding the Romney camp’s Jeep ad: It gives the impression that they’re trailing in OH. Otherwise, they never would have resorted to this kind of TV ad; it’s the feel of going nuclear” (The Trail). Note that Romney is resuming campaigning in FL, not OH.

TN. Fracking: “According to the newly approved Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) rules on fracking, ratified by the Tennessee Oil and Gas Board on Sept. 28, if enough of your neighbors sign away their mineral rights (sometimes for as little as $10 an acre), a gas drilling company can use your land, whether you like it or not.”

WI. Surrogates: “Romney canceled his West Allis appearance last night because of Hurricane Sandy. But today, his wife and running mate are scheduled to be in the state. Joe Biden and Bill Clinton will be filling in for Obama this week.” … Food carts: “The city’s Vending Oversight Committee, as part of its annual review of food carts, on Wednesday will discuss whether carts must offer vegetarian menu items.” Never happen in Philly. Sausage inna bun!

The trail. Data: “The glowing accounts [e.g.; e.g.] in the newspapers conjure up visions of hip young geeks parked in front of gleaming banks of computers, winning elections with the click of a mouse. … The sophisticated techniques the press describes (like using data to tailor phone pitches to voters) are things the campaign aspires to but fails to execute properly, at least in my field level view. The irony is that the ‘old-fashioned’ way of doing things – before powerful databases – could possibly be more effective than all that tedious mucking about with low quality data.” This is an important post. I have anecdotal evidence that the D field operations hollowed out when many (female) volunteers hung up their clipboards post-2008. We might view the data-centric approach as the electoral version of drone strikes: A high-tech substitute for a hollowed out field force, and far less accurate than claimed. I can think back to one vaunted D field operation that got its lunch handed to it by Rs, and quite recently: The WI recall (not high tech, but just as heavily marketed). We’ll soon know! … Data: “Some of these ['voter fraud vigilante'] challenges appear to be the work of isolated individuals, others are coordinated by local groups ‘empowered by’ national entities like True the Vote. The common thread is that the challenges are based not on personal information about particular voters, but computerized scans of data records.” … Hurricane Sandy: “Public opinion polling operations were disrupted Monday and Tuesday because the storm cut power and telecommunication services to millions of voters in the Northeast and in the battleground states of OH and VA.” … Hurricane Sandy: “Because Sandy is hitting major population centers, it will affect the election, altering early voting, get-out-the-vote drives and last-minute, door-to-door campaigning. In Virginia’s Senate race, D Tim Kaine and R George Allen jointly asked their supporters to take down their yard signs lest the placards become injurious missiles in Sandy’s high winds.” … Hurricane Sandy: “If poll hours are extended, under a 2002 law passed by Congress in response to the disputed 2000 presidential election, any voters who show up outside of regular hours must use provisional ballots, which are counted later and could be challenged. Sandy’s impact was felt in some of the most competitive states in the presidential race, including Virginia and Ohio. The more provisional ballots that are cast, the greater the chances are that the winner won’t be known until days or even weeks after the election” (good explainer). … Polling: “It’s not a conspiracy theory;those other polls are just simply missing a critical segment of Obama’s coalition: cellphone users.” And: “If you look at the election through cell phones, you see Obama gain an 11-point lead in the convention and post-convention period, but if you look at landline respondents, the race has been close and pretty stable.” I dunno. Seems like a pretty basic methodological flaw for very well-paid vendors to overlook. … Horse race: “[Obama: 253 EV/27 states, Romney 191/23]. The seven jump ball states with a total of 94 electoral votes are CO (9), FL (29), IA (6), NH (4), NC (15), OH (18), and VA (13). To win, Obama needs to win states with 17 [of that] 94, while Romney needs 79 of 94. However, the Obama advantage is not as clear cut as this suggests. In each of these states, Obama and Romney are within 5 percentage points of each other and in most they are within 2 or 3 points of each other” (Charlie Cook).

The Obama. Hurricane Sandy: “Obama took the rare step of granting major-disaster declarations to NY and NJ without a full federal assessment [verbally] , clearing the way more quickly for direct grants to individuals hit hardest by former Hurricane Sandy” (2012-10-30). … Hurricane Sandy: Presidents can overcome the effect of even the most severe weather damage in a particular location by declaring that location a disaster area (and therefore eligible for federal disaster funds).” (Monkey Cage, 2012-10-28. So, has Team Obama read the literature?) … Hurrricane Sandy: “While Romney was playing political defense, Obama was the model of bipartisanship. He complemented local officials of both parties, saying without the steps taken by state and local officials, the death toll could have been much higher. He also went on to praise first responders and promised ‘no bureaucracy, no red tape’ by the federal government in responding to this disaster.” … Hurricane Sandy: “After suspending official campaigning in deference to Hurricane Sandy for three crucial days, he’s using the power of his office not only to oversee the federal government response, but also to showcase for voters the popular side of an active government while presenting a take-charge image of himself reinforced by the multi-media message machinery of the White House.” It’s a sad day when performing the basic operations of government becomes a cause for celebration. … Obama remarks to the Red Cross: [Obama rises to the occasion (and if I say that…) Yes, it's a shame that the solidarity Obama evokes in an emergency is being corroded and destroyed on a day-to-day basis by Obama's market state-driven policies, and one can see quite easily how the mechanisms deployed for "natural" disasters -- especially the stress on compliance -- could be repurposed for "emergencies" less natural, but this was no Katrina moment for Obama. And Obama's reach-around to leverage Chris Christie's 2016 ambitions was a master stroke. ("Already, the late-night calls to Republican Gov. Chris Christie are public (thanks to Christie, not the president, by the way.") Ha.]

* Slogan of the day: Unite With The Obama To Achieve An Even Greater Victory!

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.